


and the audience begs 'encore!'

by tsukishimmy



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: F/M, depressed old man, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:27:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28003875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsukishimmy/pseuds/tsukishimmy
Summary: "He is writer of history as it should be told. The villain, the hero, the ruthless god; he has played all these parts."A character piece on Emet-Selch.
Relationships: Azem/Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch, Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch/Reader, Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch/Warrior of Light
Comments: 10
Kudos: 40





	and the audience begs 'encore!'

**Author's Note:**

> a character piece on our dearly departed dude, emet-selch. the WOL is left vague for people to feel free to insert themselves into this narrative. i barely beta'd this and edited it so godspeed to those who read.
> 
> for a sample of the song i used, look up "Everything Stays (feat. Olivia Olson)"
> 
> join me and my comrades: https://discord.gg/enabling-debauched-xivfic

Emet-selch has lived long enough to gorge himself on any and all vices.

For thousands of years, he happily indulged himself, taking whatever these shattered shards could offer. They were to pay their dues, after all. It was the least these broken and imperfect souls could do. For taking up precious space that should have been filled by others, they were to pay the price of entertaining him until eternity comes to an end.

And oh, how entertaining they were.

Puppets on a string; Emet makes them dance, sing, act, scheme, manipulate, fight, and murder. He is the whisper in the ear of self-proclaimed Gods. He is the judge that promises justice. He is the executioner who brings down the axe against emperors. He is the composure of wars. The writer of history as it should be told. The villain, the hero, the ruthless god; he has played all these parts.

And the strings of fate have become too dull to play. The repetition of time too tedious to manipulate. How many times has he constructed the same thing over and over again, only to crush it with his own hand?

These stars, they are so impermanent. Here, things do not last. They wither and die and eventually are forgotten.

They are the audience: impermanent and continuously shifting. Each clapping, crying, yelling as they watch him and his companions unfold the story over and over again. For the hundredth time, Emet-Selch has performed for these shards. A hundred times more, he will act. Each time the curtain falls, the audience cheers and begs ‘encore! encore!’

This is a set that can never be struck. Endlessly stuck in a loop of performance. He had once thought they performed for him, only to realize he was the puppet.

His existence is disconnected from the audience, uncaring of their perception of this play. They would laugh and cheer, while others wept tears of misery. None of it mattered to him.

There was almost a time it did. There was once a sliver of care for these shards, these fragments. When he held a creature so small and so vulnerable in his arms. When he watched his son grow into a man. Who once filled the emptiness in his chest with love. Who brought him real joy that he had not experienced in centuries.

But even that was taken from him.

The weight of that infant is still heavy in his hands.

Too soon. _Too early_.

Like everything else, he was impermanent.

And so, his heart is closed, no longer available for anyone to pick and prod at. No more would he see these fragments as anything else except their true, imperfect selves. He would act, dance, and sing for them until the end of eternity. Never could he join the shadows that linger in his peripheral vision. Familiar faces that did not recognize him, familiar people he could no longer hold.

Let them pull and tug at his strings until the curtain falls. Let them cheer and sob and beg _encore_ once more. Exchanging masks for different characters of this endless play.

And _she_. She is truly the puppet master.

How she pulls his heart taut, stringing his veins to a lute to serenade him with the sweetest of songs. A melody of _promise_. A piece that beckons him once more to take up the mantle of a character he has long since abandoned. Hades. Oh, how this tune she plays makes him wish to follow the familiar dance they shared long ago. How he imagines the warmth of her skin against his hands when he pulls her close, palm curved over the small of her waist.

The length of his existence had given him the first choice of vices to choose from. He had tried them all, eventually. But no amount of drink, sex, and other gluttonous options would soothe the ache in his heart. Even now, when she arrives in Amaurot, begging for assistance – begging to save her friends – he cannot bring himself to indulge in the single thing he had desired for millenniums.

 _They are not the same_ , he warns himself, silencing the racing of his emptied heart. Her laughter, her smile… her demeanor reminds him of her _so much_ . Yet, she is not her as well. She is merely a strand of hair that has fallen from the golden head of his once past lover. How many times has he chased after these shards of her, only to be reminded of the fleeting mortality they all shared. That _she_ did not have.

When she shares with him her demons that linger in the shadows, all he wishes for is to laugh with misery. Oh, how he could hold her, carding fingers through stark black hair ( _so maddeningly different than Azems)_ and teach her the valuable lesson he hated the most:

 _Everything you touch will turn to ash_.

Emet knows this feeling well: the desperate clawing at salvation. He does not speak his mind nor share in his story. His own ego will not allow him to be vulnerable, to be honest with her, despite his desire to do so.

In another lifetime, he would indulge her in every detail of his waking day. When she would return from her adventures, he would share _everything_ with her. Yet now, when he wishes to speak – when she has once more returned from yet another adventure – he cannot find the words.

 _I wish you had taken me with you_.

“You have chosen your fate, as I have chosen mine, hero.”

 _Maybe then, things could be different_.

“You will fight and you will lose, inevitably. As I have fought and I have lost. That is the way of things.”

She was so much like her – a spitting image. Even the way she thought, the way she spoke, her gestures. And just like Azem, she was untouchable. He could never have her or call her his own. She belonged to everyone, everyone except herself. She was the sun, after all, and he was merely the moon. Only destined to cross paths, but never to be one.

She sat in the audience, mocking him to share her company after the play. Yet the story proceeds, and with the begging of an encore, he cannot leave the stage to join her. Instead, he is forced to watch her from a distance. She is agonizingly close, enough that the tips of his fingers could brush against the warmth of her body. Yet still utterly unattainable.

“This… this is a fight I cannot win,” her words are barely above a whisper. She can feel the light clawing away at her very essence, that she would soon be ripped asunder. “But I can still save them. What deal did we make before?”

“You would stay in the Underworld and I would leave your little friends alone.”

“And if I become…” She swallows the fear that rises to her throat. He can see how she chokes on it, suffocated by the grief. “If I succumb to the light?”

“Then I do the Scions a favor by killing you.”

_Always sacrificing yourself, always putting everyone else first. But what of me? What of us?_

Diluted light filters into the solarium and encompasses flora and fauna with a cool glow. He sees her lounge against the thick trunk of a tree, fingers plucking at the harp he spawned for her.

 _What a kind host_ , she teased, eyes alight with mischief when he offered it to her. _Dare I say you are warming up to me?_

He retorted with his usual, indifferent, and mocking attitude: _no, I merely wish for you to make use of yourself while you’re here. Entertain me, will you?_

And entertain him she did. Every day she would sit in the garden, surrounded by roses, and play the harp. Even with his empty heart, one that yearns for something that cannot exist, he feels satisfied. In the first time in thousands of years, he feels the itch of despair soothed by the coolness of her voice in the solarium.

He had finally brought Azem home.

Emet-Selch rests his head against the thin glass window, inconspicuously pressing his ear to hear her melody. With every flick of her wrist, a song would play, and he would find himself dancing to her tune _._ The dichotomy of his demands versus his actions; if only she could see it. She would laugh, he was sure. _Entertain me_ , he said to her. Yet he was the one dancing, the one being puppeteering him with the strings of her harp.

She spent most of her day playing a tune with no lyrics, but today, she sings a song.

And Emet-Selch finds himself indulging in one last vice.


End file.
